EthicsBy: Unknown (384 BC - 322 BC)

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THE ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE

INTRODUCTION

The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his
Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject.
This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the "philosophy of
human affairs;" but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the
two works taken together we have their author's whole theory of human
conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which
is not directed merely to knowledge or truth. The two parts of this
treatise are mutually complementary, but in a literary sense each
is independent and self contained. The proem to the Ethics is an
introduction to the whole subject, not merely to the first part; the
last chapter of the Ethics points forward to the Politics , and
sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to be
pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to).

The principle of distribution of the subject matter between the two
works is far from obvious, and has been much debated. Not much can be
gathered from their titles, which in any case were not given to them by
their author. Nor do these titles suggest any very compact unity in the
works to which they are applied: the plural forms, which survive so
oddly in English (Ethic s , Politic s ), were intended to indicate the
treatment within a single work of a group of connected questions. The
unity of the first group arises from their centring round the topic of
character, that of the second from their connection with the existence
and life of the city or state. We have thus to regard the Ethics as
dealing with one group of problems and the Politics with a second,
both falling within the wide compass of Political Science. Each of these
groups falls into sub groups which roughly correspond to the several
books in each work. The tendency to take up one by one the various
problems which had suggested themselves in the wide field obscures both
the unity of the subject matter and its proper articulation. But it is
to be remembered that what is offered us is avowedly rather an enquiry
than an exposition of hard and fast doctrine.

Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is
important to observe the relation of each to the other. The distinction
is not that the one treats of Moral and the other of Political
Philosophy, nor again that the one deals with the moral activity of the
individual and the other with that of the State, nor once more that the
one gives us the theory of human conduct, while the other discusses its
application in practice, though not all of these misinterpretations are
equally erroneous. The clue to the right interpretation is given by
Aristotle himself, where in the last chapter of the Ethics he is
paving the way for the Politics . In the Ethics he has not confined
himself to the abstract or isolated individual, but has always thought
of him, or we might say, in his social and political context, with a
given nature due to race and heredity and in certain surroundings.
So viewing him he has studied the nature and formation of his
character all that he can make himself or be made by others to be.
Especially he has investigated the various admirable forms of human
character and the mode of their production. But all this, though it
brings more clearly before us what goodness or virtue is, and how it is
to be reached, remains mere theory or talk. By itself it does not
enable us to become, or to help others to become, good. For this it is
necessary to bring into play the great force of the Political Community
or State, of which the main instrument is Law. Hence arises the demand
for the necessary complement to the Ethics, i.e. , a treatise devoted
to the questions which centre round the enquiry; by what organisation
of social or political forces, by what laws or institutions can we best
secure the greatest amount of good character?

We must, however, remember that the production of good character is not
the end of either individual or state action: that is the aim of the one
and the other because good character is the indispensable condition and
chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing... Continue reading book >>